Local Sports
Tift gets sweep of Worth County
SYLVESTER — Rod Downs led a balanced Tift scoring attack with 12 points, and the Blue Devils improved to 6-1 on the season, with a 70-50 rout of Worth County Friday night in Sylvester.
The Lady Devils won the opener by a 58-49 score to also improve to 6-1 before Christmas break.
The Blue Devils jumped out to another big first quarter lead just as was the case in Tuesday’s win over the Rams in Tifton. Tift led 9-2 with 4:24 remaining in the quarter, due to pressure defense. Tae Jolly scored the first five points, and the Devils also got baskets from Breon Dixon and Jerome Graydon.
After a Josh Alford three-pointer pulled the Rams to within four points, Tift again went on a big 10-1 run to extend the lead to 19-6. Donnell Tuff, Vernon Moore and Malcolm Dixon had field goals in the run for Tift.
Worth County got to within seven in the second quarter after back-to-back baskets by Dee Nether, but Tift outscored the Rams 15-3 in the final five minutes of the second quarter.
Alford kept the Rams within striking distance in the third quarter, as he scored eight of Worth’s 18 points in the period. The Devils were paced by baskets from Graydon, Moore, Coby Neloms, Breon Dixon, Micah McCant, Downs and Malcolm Dixon.
Tift held a 55-38 lead after three periods, and after five straight points from Downs with 5:40 remaining in the game, each coach began substituting liberally.
Besides Downs’ points, Moore had 11 for Tift and Neloms and Graydon each had nine points. Malcolm Dixon chipped in with seven points.
In the girls’ game, Tift County played perhaps the best game in the Julie Conner era in defeating the Lady Rams.
On Tuesday, Worth outscored Tift 12-2 after one quarter of play, but on Friday night, Tift raced out to an 18-5 lead and never looked back.
“The difference in this game from last game (a 49-43 loss on Tuesday) was intensity,” Conner said.
Raven Denson, Brakia Bateman, Amber McKenzie, Jessica Covington and Noelle Okongwu contributed in the Tift 14-0 run to start the game. Worth finally scratched the scoreboard on a free throw by Dominique Jackson.
A Jackson basket brought the Lady Rams to within six at 22-16, but Tift outscored Worth 11-0 over the final three minutes of the half.
McKenzie, Okongwu and Raven Ashley each had scores for Tift in the run.
Worth made on final push in the third quarter, after a three-pointer from Christie Smith again got the Lady Rams to within six points. But the Lady Devils responded behind the play of McKenzie, who had a game-high 22 points on the night, to push the lead back out to 15 points.
Worth shot 9-of-31 from behind the three point line.
McKenzie also had nine rebounds, five steals, and three assists on the night.
Okongwu had her first career double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds, and Jessica Covington added five points and six rebounds.
Smith paced Worth with 15 points and Kim Evans added 12 points for the Lady Rams.
Both the boys and girls teams will travel to Jones County Dec. 28 for the Holiday Bank Classic in Gray.
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Sloppy win for Blue Devils, 32-14
Historians will not look back at Friday night’s Tift County Blue Devil-Shiloh High General football game as a prime example of a well-played game. Five different scores came as a result of either fumbles or bad snaps from center, but at the end, Tift’s defense stood tall and the result was a 32-14 win for the Devils.
The win puts Tift at 2-1 on the year as one of the top teams in the state, the Stephenson High Jaguars, will come to Tifton’s Brodie Field next week. -
Murray has 4 TDs in No. 23 Georgia’s 55-7 win
Aaron Murray loves to flash his athleticism. Georgia coach Mark Richt just wants his quarterback to stay healthy.
“A couple of times when he was out of the pocket he could’ve just simply thrown the ball out of bounds,” Richt said. “When he decides to turn it upfield and try to dodge people, he’s going to get splattered if he does that over and over.”
Murray passed for three touchdowns and ran for another in leading No. 23 Georgia to a 55-7 victory over Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday. - Nesbitt, No. 16 Georgia Tech top S.C. State, 41-10
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Fitzgerald uses big second half to finally put away Indians, 34-6
The Irwin County Indians left the field at the end of the half Friday night with reason to be proud after holding the Fitzgerald Hurricanes to just one offensive score and only 14 points total. However, an upset was not in the cards and Fitzgerald quickly turned their modest 14-6 halftime lead into a 34-6 blowout.
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Generals making rare trip south
With their visit tonight to Brodie Field to face the Tift County Blue Devils, the Shiloh High Generals will be playing a football game in South Georgia for the first time since 2005.
Their last visit to South Georgia resulted in a 37-0 loss to Valdosta in 2005.
In the Gwinnett Daily Post’s preseason preview, Shiloh Head Coach Keith Wilkes said he wanted his team to get the feel of the South Georgia atmosphere.
“My athletic director (Michael Nicholson) said the state championship always goes through South Georgia, so he wanted us to go down there and get a good feel for what is going down there,” Wilkes told the Gwinnett Daily Post. “I don’t mind venturing the program out. If you want to get it to another level then you definitely have to venture out from where you are and kind of see other things. It will give the kids a chance to see how Georgia football is in other places. I know South Georgia is where the big-time football is, so we’re going down there to see what happens.” -
Shiloh coming to town Friday
The Tift County Blue Devils will play host to the Shiloh High Generals Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Tift County will enter with a 1-1 record, while Shiloh will come in at 0-1.
Shiloh fell by a 24-6 score last Saturday at Newton County.
While Shiloh fell, the Devils rebounded from a season-opening loss with a 34-7 win over Locust Grove. -
Hanson allows 1 hit over 7 innings, finally wins
Tommy Hanson finally got some run support and won for the first time in nearly two months, allowing just one hit in seven shutout innings to lead the Atlanta Braves past the New York Mets 4-1 Wednesday night.
Omar Infante and Jason Heyward combined for seven hits at the top of the Braves' order, Martin Prado drove in two runs with a first-inning double and it could have been worse for the Mets if they hadn't thrown out two Atlanta runners at the plate. - Hess, Gaskins help ASU gain victory
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